Gideon Spanier: More (show) business can be good for the arts

Wednesday 9 January 2013 11:05 BST

p74 royal opera house

Forget Skyfall and The Hobbit. The second highest-grossing release at Britain’s cinemas on one evening in the middle of December wasn’t a film. It was a one-off, live broadcast of The Nutcracker from the Royal Opera House.

This is just one instance of how ROH chief executive Lord Hall, the BBC’s next director-general, has sought to appeal to wider audiences and generate new income.

Another example came on Monday when the august ROH became a web broadcaster, producing a live “backstage” TV show from the Covent Garden venue. Called Royal Opera Live, the broadcast ran all day and included rehearsals and interviews. Other innovations have included a paid-for iPhone game about opera and ballet.

At a time when many in the arts are feeling the pain of austerity — state subsidy is falling and many private donors are hurting — seeking out new revenues and smarter ways of doing things is a necessity.

Arts organisations must help themselves, and new technology and marketing are key.

Every museum, gallery, theatre and performance venue is now a digital brand — a publisher and broadcaster, which can communicate directly and cheaply with existing and new fans.

Whitehall is giving arts organisations a nudge. Despite the cuts, the Government-backed Arts Council and the BBC have jointly launched The Space, an on-demand online TV service. Royal Opera Live was available to watch for free on The Space.

For ROH director of communications Chris Millard, free live events and web broadcasts are more about increasing audience reach than generating income — at least in the short term. “We play to capacity here. We can’t get any more people in here,” he says. “But we’re getting hundreds of thousands more people interested around the world. It’s feeding an appetite in places like Japan and Brazil and it’s affecting our touring strategy.

“You can brand-build around that,” adds Millard, who says using customer data is a growth area. “Reach can mean vital income.” For example, as the ROH’s online fan base grows, it is considering pay-per-view broadcasts.

“Audiences beget other audiences,” believes Marc Sands, Tate’s director of media and audiences. Social media, in particular, is a game-changer. “It allows us to broadcast messages and create a dialogue at the same time and it is allowing us to reach audiences in a way which is so much cheaper and more effective,” he says, pointing to Tate’s 780,000-strong Twitter following.

“The pass-on factor is huge,” adds Sands, referring to the online chatter around Tate Tanks, its new live performance space. “In some cases, that clearly generated ticket sales.” Tate Modern has just announced it drew a record 5.3 million visitors last year.

Visitor numbers matter. The subsidy that arts organisations receive increasingly depends on whether they appeal to wider and less affluent audiences. When Tate hired advertising agency Brooklyn Brothers a year ago, there was a specific remit to “broaden the range of audiences who experience art”.

However, not everyone can rely on subsidy. The Roundhouse in Chalk Farm only gets just 10% of its income from public funding. The Royal Albert Hall in Kensington is self-financing.

More arts organisations will have to fend for themselves. Indeed some say privately that is their ambition.

“It’s still very early days in terms of making anything online pay,” warns Marcus Davey, chief executive of The Roundhouse, and live cinema screenings by the ROH and National Theatre are “only just starting to break even”.

“But it’s very good in building a fan base and interesting people immediately,” he adds, noting the reaction to The Roundhouse’s latest production, Fuerzabruta. “When people came on the first night, afterwards they went straight on social media and the ticket sales went crazy. Everyone is at the centre of their own network.”

So using more business and marketing savvy is no bad thing. The arts should be about putting on a great show. It’s called show business for a reason.